Moose, Moose and more Moose

Quent and I took our annual trip to Jackson Hole this past weekend.  After traveling through Yellowstone and Jackson four different times last year we did not spot one moose.  This year, we saw over 25 moose at different times throughout the trip, we saw a few bull moose and a few cow moose, unfortunately for us the moose had already dropped their antlers for the season so they all looked the same! We took Quent's mom with us as part of our Christmas present to her.

We left on Saturday morning and were to Jackson by mid afternoon.  Saturday was the best day for pictures as the weather was perfect. We found an elk refuge in Alpine, Wyoming, the elk there were AMAZING. I had never in my life been so close to elk with antlers so large. The sun did not shine but for a few minutes on Monday so we were unable to see the Tetons the entire time we were there but what missed shooting was made up for with all the fun things we did.


We ventured out on all of our old routes and actually found a few more roads to explore.  We learned that when you see moose in the wild all the other animals have pushed down hence we did not see one buffalo on the entire trip, a rarity for us.

Sunday we drove over towards Dubois, Wyoming to see what we could find.  Unfortunately the weather turned and we weren't able to find much except for a ton of snow covered pine trees.  We didn't travel much further than Togwotee Mountain Lodge which is located at an elevation of 9658 feet. We then drove up to Yellowstone through Teton National Park, we made it all the way to the snowmobile lot at the Flagg Ranch, two miles away from the entrance of Yellowstone.  We were able to see an eagle on Sunday.  The weather wasn't great the rest of the day, we took more pictures of elk just west of the refuge but that was about it.


Monday we headed back to the refuge where we were able to see an up close view of elk being fed.  We got some video of the elk stampede and watched them as they were fed.  What an amazing site.  We then headed back up to Jenny Lake and saw more moose and swans.  Monday afternoon we headed out to Wilson, just west of Jackson and found some new roads to explore.  


In the four days we were gone we drove 822 miles in 24 hours and 47 minutes.  Quent and I took close to a thousand pictures, I'm not sure how many Joyce took.  It was a great trip and we're already talking about next year's adventures.  

I have included just a few of the pictures here, for a slideshow of about 50 pictures click here.